Sounds like a good name for an indie band, or maybe Kim Carnes should have cut it as a follow-up single to "Bette Davis Eyes" back in the early 1980s.

But no. Instead it is, in some ways, a secret weapon.

Now, now. Streep, a Vassar College graduate, has won three Oscars and been nominated 15 other times (!). If she isn't the best of all time, she is at least, as they say, in the team picture. So it is ridiculous to suggest that her wildly varying hairstyles have anything to do with her talent.

But they don't hurt.

The point comes up with Streep's latest role — and hairstyle — in "The Giver," which opened Aug. 15. She plays the Chief Elder; her hair might politely be described as "exotic hag." Which kind of fits the role, actually.

Streep is known for completely embodying the characters she plays. Typically, this is reflected in something along the lines of her learning an accent to be more convincing. But if you talk to actors — I've talked to many, but never Streep — they will often tell you that hair and makeup can be an important element when it comes to immersing themselves in a role.

Sounds reasonable. It's probably a lot easier to act like a forbidding nun when you're dressed up like one than when you're doing a table read in jeans and a T-shirt.

Look at the whitish-gray hair helmet Streep sports as Miranda Priestly in "The Devil Wears Prada." Playing the knockoff of editor Anna Wintour, Streep has hair that practically dares you to look at her sideways, much less question her authority. It's sort of the office-dominatrix look — don't cross her unless you know the safe word. (In this case it's probably something like "submission.")

Contrast that with her hair in "A Cry in the Dark." Streep plays Lindy Chamberlain, the woman who was convicted of murdering her daughter; she claimed that a dingo dragged the girl out of a tent during a camping trip in Australia. (The conviction was later overturned.) The dark bowl cut is surely a sign of both the times (the baby disappeared in 1980) and Chamberlain's distracted state. A power cut, it is not.

As opposed to, say, the Margaret Thatcher hair in "The Iron Lady."Streep's Thatcher, like the other characters, is based on a historical figure. Thatcher, Great Britain's first woman prime minister, exuded authority. Her hair develops along with her power in the movie; by the height of her career, it's an impenetrable force field of hair spray and chutzpah.

In "Silkwood" the modified mullet captures perfectly a woman in the 1970s. Was Karen Silkwood's hair crucial to her activity as a union activist? Probably not, but it does suggest a sort of defiant streak, certainly in the context of nuclear power-plant employees.

Other times Streep's hair is just, well, hair, probably. She has a big ol' unruly mop in "The French Lieutenant's Woman," which is almost startling when compared with the more sensible haircuts she has had for most of her more-recent career. In "Defending Your Life," she has one such sensible, straight cut, which suits the perfect woman she portrays. (Her life is compared with Albert Brooks' more error-filled existence in Brooks' underrated film.)

In "Doubt" you can't even see her hair, as it is hidden behind a nun's habit. Does this work? Oh yeah. It's modest in the extreme (few nuns still dress this way), but it isn't just that: It also calls attention to itself. I am hiding some of myself from you. In the case of Sister Aloysius Beauvier, it is a reminder of her moral superiority, a claim she has staked out for herself.

Her hair is kind of a mess in "August: Osage County," but it's a wig, so that doesn't really count. (Although one could argue that it is as fake as the graciousness she offers visitors to her home for her husband's funeral, at least for as long as she can muster it.)

Any actor who has made as many films as Streep has will naturally change his or her appearance for roles. But Streep's experience is so vast and her track record so strong that we look for reasons why, something beyond the enormous talent.

The hair may have something to do with it. It may not. But as meticulous as Streep is in her preparation and execution, it's difficult to imagine anything is left to chance.

That said, you should see the insane explosion on top of her head for the upcoming "Into the Woods." Can't wait to see that.